AREVA T&D Inc.

The AREVA T&D Clinic project is to design and prototype a new user interface for AREVA T&D power grid management software using ideas from computer game interfaces. In particular we use techniques from real-time strategy games to improve navigation, draw attention to important events, and adaptively display relevant information.

To maintain accuracy, GPS satellites require regular corrections to their broadcast orbital parameters. An extensive network of ground antennas and control stations throughout the world periodically updates the satellites’ orbital parameters, and transmits the updated information to each satellite. Currently, this process occurs at least once a day. Raising the update frequency would increase the accuracy of GPS, but would increase network traffic within the ground network with unknown consequences. To test the impact of such changes on network load, the Clinic team has developed a simulation framework using inexpensive PCs to represent the various nodes in the ground network.

This project investigated various visual structures for sets of business rules. The team developed software for transforming arbitrarily constructed decision trees into Oblivious read-Once Decision Graphs (OODGs) and Exception Directed Acyclic Graphs (EDAGs). The team then analyzed the visual complexity of the different structures to determine whether the OODGs and EDAGs are more human-readable than the original trees. This work will form the foundation for a potential EDAG visualization component for Fair Isaac’s Blaze Advisor system.

Filing is a tedious chore for organizations storing electronic documents in a large hierarchy of folders. To make this task easier, we built an easily extended framework that determines a set of likely locations for documents needing to be filed. We generate these recommendations by determining the similarity between a new document and the documents already present in the directory, using a combination of text, image, and metadata classifiers.

NC4 provides their customers with breaking news alerts as incidents occur by monitoring and analyzing over 2,000 news sources. The goal of this project is to further automate NC4’s online information filtering process, allowing analysts to maintain a sharper focus on news events and their potential impact on clients. The NC4 Clinic team has worked to develop new systems for collecting, analyzing, and distributing information to NC4’s analysts.

Sandia National Laboratories

As the need for greater computing power becomes more apparent in the simulation of complex systems, the computers themselves have reached the limits of their fundamental designs. Sandia National Laboratories has initiated an ambitious project with the goal of simulating supercomputers to find and eliminate the bottlenecks inherent in current architectures. The goal of this Clinic project is to create an I/O node simulator that will be eventually integrated with Sandia’s larger project.

The Aerospace Corporation has developed an oscillator which generates a wideband chaotic signal. This year’s Clinic Team has been asked to design, build, and demonstrate a radar system using the chaotic signal as the basis for the transmitted waveform. Because of the noise-like nature of the chaotic waveform, this proof-ofconcept system would make the radar signal harder to detect than that of traditional radar systems.

Biomedical Research Services (BRS), a biomedical science research company, desires a therapeutic contact lens. Due to chitosan’s known antimicrobial and healing properties, BRS has requested the use of chitosan as the surface treatment. BRS requires the lens to inhibit a broad spectrum of common bacterial pathogens while allowing uninterrupted vision. In addition to being optically transparent, the chitosan layer must not cause degradation of the lens and must not hurt the patient in any way.

Ocean Systems, a division of The Boeing Company, seeks to produce a new propulsion system for its Unmanned Undersurface Vehicles (UUVs). The system will pitch the blades of a shrouded propeller, using them as control surfaces to provide maneuverability and thus eliminating the need for rudders and guide fins. The Clinic team will produce a prototype of its design, submit an algorithm to control the system, and conduct a performance evaluation to test system viability.

Cardinal Health

Cardinal Health has asked the team to design an inexpensive, partially disposable flow sensor with a small footprint for a next-generation medical IV set. Current solutions rely on pressure sensors, which may not have a fast response time. The team has implemented and tested a thermal timeof-flight sensor capable of measuring a large range of flow velocities, and has designed a chip sensor suitable for medical applications.

Center for Intergration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT)

Design & Production of a Self- Optimizing, Closed-Loop Ventilator System

The Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) is funding the development of a self-optimizing, closed-loop medical ventilator system. The Clinic team has designed, manufactured, and tested a digitally controlled system for this purpose. This system will be applied to variety of military and civilian purposes including use with pre-hospital trauma, contaminated environments, contagious patients, and mass casualty disaster relief.

On the battlefield and in hospitals around the world, healthcare personnel struggle to assess patients’ cardiac status. While blood pressure and heart rate measurements are routine, there exists a clear need for a non-invasive cardiac monitor that can inform physicians about the effective performance of a patient’s heart. The DARPA Clinic team has developed a conceptual framework for a non-contact device that uses steppedfrequency electromagnetic interrogation to assess cardiac health. Through both analytical modeling and experimental work, the team has explored the feasibility of this novel approach.

Our project task was to design, build and prototype a safe and easy to manufacture fuel cell that supplies fuel in any orientation. The cartridge must be compatible with many types of fuel cells. The team also developed a child safety device for a cartridge developed by DMFCC and created a proof of concept for an authentication system that prevents the use of dangerous pirated cartridges.

This Clinic project is performing a mechanical analysis of the static deflection at the base of a consumer satellite antenna. They are therefore concerned with the construction materials and structure and how they affect the magnitude of the deflection under weather loading, such as wind, temperature changes, etc. Additionally they are developing a monitoring system for measuring the deflection and will lastly provide DIRECTV with their recommendations for optimal dish installation.

The Edwards Air Force Base Clinic team designed, built, and tested a prototype for an optical communication link from a dynamic platform to a ground receiving system. The system transmits data to a moving ground vehicle at least one mile away using an IR laser. The data will be sent at 100 kilobits per second with less than one corrupted bit per 100,000 bits. The project will be carried on next year for use with aircraft.

Fluidmaster, Inc.

Fluidmaster Inc., a worldwide supplier of plumbing products, desires a new and efficient hands free toilet flushing system. As a result of emerging sensor and electronic technologies becoming more cost efficient, Fluidmaster has requested several designs for innovative, electronic flushing systems to keep at the forefront of competitive flush technology. If possible, the team should incorporate several “up-sell” opportunities, including consistent flush volume, leak detection and prevention, dual flush capabilities, and a remote control.

Honeywell develops heat exchangers that are used in various devices such as aeroplanes. During the vibration testing of a heat exchanger prototype some of the components of the device failed due to large dynamic amplifications. Honeywell has asked the team to determine the cause of the large dynamic amplifications observed in the vibration testing.

Solar chimneys for power generation are conceptually simple structures that warm air in massive quantities and direct it upwards through a chimney. A turbine generator inside the chimney then generates electricity due to the air flow. Chimney designs are currently very large civil engineering projects, requiring large amounts of land and huge construction costs. Increasing the efficiency of the system and generating more power can offset these large expenses. The main goal of this project is to determine optimal chimney designs that are low in cost but high in efficiency.

In third-world countries across the globe, electrical power is not readily available, making reliable cooling a rarity. In addition to affecting the general quality of life for the inhabitants of these countries, the lack of cooling also limits food storage capabilities and the availability of temperature-sensitive medications. The project goal is to create a system that utilizes solar energy to power a refrigerator.

Max Planck Institute for AstronomyAstronomical Stabilization System

To build an interferometer at Dome C in Antarctica, a stable 30m tower would be necessary to elevate the telescopes above the 27m boundary layer. The team has studied geometries designed to stabilize the top of the tower while minimizing wind resistance, and designed a global control system which controls pointing of a telescope to minimize the error in the image recorded by the telescope.

In the United States, about 150,000 people use insulin pumps. Pumps enhance the lives of diabetics by providing flexibility and consistency in insulin treatment. Current pump technology must rely on user input to ascertain the presence and proper seating of an insulin vial. The HMC Clinic team designed and tested a device to automate vial detection and characterization. It is hoped that this technology will be used in the next generation of pumps, enhancing pump versatility and performance.

The goal of this project is to build a smart watering system to reduce water wastage during landscape irrigation. Traditional sprinkler systems are designed to water for the driest area, which means all other areas are over-watered. Rain Bird has requested that the team develop a system to solve this problem by adjusting for the microclimates within an irrigation zone. Our system would adjust for each microclimate by keeping on or turning off each sprinkler based on the moisture level in the area that each sprinkler covers. In order to develop this system the team has designed a wireless moisture sensor that transmits a moisture level to a central controller. That controller is attached to each valve and will cut off power to the sprinkler valve if the microclimate has been sufficiently watered.

The project is focused around modeling, designing and testing a strobe light for use with a calibration system on a satellite. The team is validating the idea that a xenon strobe light will be a lower powered and spectrally more accurate and reliable system than those currently in use. There is also a phase adjustment aspect to the project to be able to precisely control when the strobe is fired.

Sierra Wireless is interested in harnessing the power of emerging Voice-Over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology in conjunction with their existing Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) modems. The goal of this Clinic project is to develop a VoIP over WWAN Gateway prototype that will interface with a normal analog phone receiver and a PC. The gateway will provide VoIP service and Internet access wirelessly via the Sierra Wireless WWAN modem.

Soff-Cut is the industry leader in secondary operations aimed at preventing random cracking in concrete slabs. The team has been given the task of designing the next generation of random crack control, which will allow Soff-Cut to stay ahead of its competitors. The team has developed several conceptual designs to present to Soff-Cut, and has constructed a prototype for early-entry crack control to stay at the forefront of an ever growing industry.

The Southern California Edison Clinic team has designed, built, and validated a prototype power conversion system that can safely extract energy from 12 kV or 16 kV distribution lines to provide stable power for small automation equipment. Presently, this equipment is powered by bulky ½ kVA transformers, which are excessive and costly for the application. The team delivers a compact, inexpensive, modular solution that includes a solid state transformer, an electro-optic voltage regulator, and clamp-on toroidal cores.

Traditional gimbaled cameras mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are undesirably heavy and require a significant amount of electric power. The team designed and simulated a digital camera array with multiple imaging modes and built a demonstration prototype. The array of cameras imitated the functions found on a gimbaled pan-tilt-zoom camera in a low-power, lightweight package.

Momentum wheels are an efficient means to re-orient a satellite in orbit without using thrusters, which consume fuel from the satellite’s limited supply. In order to have a significant influence on a satellite’s orientation, however, a momentum wheel must be spun at very high RPM, often creating vibrations that have an adverse effect upon a satellite’s pointing accuracy. With this in mind, the SS/Loral Clinic team has employed numerical and empirical methods to characterize the composite assembly used to mount momentum wheels to SS/Loral satellites and explore damping techniques for this assembly.

Amgen, Inc. is interested in evaluating the use of novel technologies in plastic containers for commercial and late-stage products. The 2005/06 Clinic team will identify strategies to improve drug stability in these containers and provide recommendations based on acceptable characteristics. The team will also perform market research on the production process and prepare a cost analysis for business justification.

Gilead Sciences

Design, Implementation, and Validation of a Chemical Dispensing System

Gilead Sciences wishes to automate its currently completely manual chemical dispensing system. The joint Keck Graduate Institute and Harvey Mudd College team designed and implemented an automated dispensing system at Gilead’s San Dimas, CA facility. The automated process utilized data collection software to interface the dispensing and networking hardware wirelessly to Gilead Sciences’ Enterprise Resource Planning system. The entire system will be validated according to highly regulated FDA requirements and is set for going Live onsite on June 28th, 2006.

Many of the most critical medications are injected directly into veins, arteries, or muscles using an IV system. The flow through traditional IV systems is driven by direct displacement mechanisms such as pistons or peristaltic actuators with flow disruption detected by measuring pressure. Cardinal Health’s next generation of systems will combine active and passive components with a sensor (a current HMC Engineering Clinic project) that determines the instantaneous flow rate. The mathematics team designed a control algorithm that incorporates feedback from this sensor to more accurately regulate flow.

Hewlett-Packard Laboratories

Implementation and Testing of Two New Methods for Generating ICC Profiles

Color printers use ICC profiles, which are standards that show how a device’s range of colors correspond with a device-independent color space. It is relatively easy to construct a forward profile for transmitting information from one device to another, but it is difficult to compute the inverse profile with accuracy. Our project is concerned with developing two innovative methods for generating inverse profiles.

Computerized mathematical models of tumor growth can help increase understanding of cancer biology and potentially improve cancer treatment. Furthermore, such models can be used as predictive tools for studying the effects of chemotherapies upon tumor growth and creating more effective and precisely calibrated treatments. Our team explored vascular tumor growth by adding a blood vessel structure to a pre-existing avascular tumor model and then studying the effects of various in silico chemotherapy doses upon tumor growth.

Mathematics/Engineering Clinic

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
Center for Environmental Studies at Harvey Mudd College

This project focuses on the techniques for analysis of market growth, penetration, and forecasting applicable to renewable energy technologies. Mathematical models were adjusted to incorporate the effects of fiscal policies and were evaluated using available data. These modifications were made based on research and classification of current mathematical models used for predicting market penetration. Analyses were carried out to measure the accuracy and predictability of the modified models.

Coated soot aerosols pose cardiovascular and pulmonary health risks and are among the least understood contributors to climate change. This project aims to measure the total extinction and polarization-resolved differential scattering cross section of soot particles, and to study how these optical properties are affected by transparent coatings similar to those found on atmospheric soot particles. We report cavity-ringdown and angle-resolved scattering measurements of soot particles created in an ethylene flame and coated with layers of oleic acid.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and UC Davis Medical center are currently developing a next-generation Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) system that employs Adaptive Optics (AO) technology. The AO enhances the capability of OCT to study the retina of the human eye by compensating for aberrations in the cornea and lens, allowing visualization of individual photoreceptors. The Clinic team will design and evaluate a compact AO-OCT system viable for use in clinical ophthalmic research.